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An essay by Sha'Tara, local writer and friend.
Why choose to be Alone?
[thoughts from ~ burning woman ~ by Sha’Tara]
Extended quote from “Songs of Earth and Power” by Greg Bear:
“Biri sat in the grass and gestured for Michael to do likewise. ‘You are alone,’ Biri said. ‘You are the only thing in existence. You will never truly know there are others. Because humans have souls is no reason to believe they differ from the Sidhe (Note: sídhe, the race of fairies – closest pronunciation: “Shee.”) in this, that they are eternally alone.’
Michael shook his head. ‘What about friendship, love?’
‘Love does not occur to the Sidhe male,’ Biri said. ‘But I can demolish love even so. Did you love the real person, or your image of the person? Did you love an external, or what the person was to you?’
‘But there has to be someone, something, to love or to be disappointed with.’
‘Only yourself. Alone. Life is alone, love is alone.’
‘Then you don’t exist. Nobody else exists.’
‘Together we are alone. That is the peculiarity of our being. We never know true community. Not even Sidhe, who can reach inside each other’s aura of memory, out-see and in-see; not even Sidhe can avoid being alone. You can never rely on another, not to the core of your being. You can never ultimately trust in another…for how is that possible when you are alone?’
Biri seemed to vanish, leaving Michael on the grass. Alone.
He pulled up a sprig and contemplated it, feeling dead inside. He was unique, solitary, without any support in all of reality—including his own internal reality—if even his mind was alone, with just one voice and all else illusory—
[ ] His aloneness suddenly became apparent, without words, truth, meaning or thought.
The only way one can be alone is to be at one with everything, everybody…
The entire universe, having only one voice.
All the faces of creation, alone.
‘Aloneness means isolation from needs.’
‘I only fight shadows. If I am alone, there is no enemy to fight.’
‘It is crazy to fight when you are alone.’
Biri had helped him build this structure piece by piece, carefully. Now it began to collapse. The whole thing was ridiculous. How could he ever believe such nonsense? Yet as it collapsed, it did not take the calm or sense of mastery with it; they remained.
They had built a boat, crossed a river, and the boat had crumbled just as he stood on the opposite shore.
Biri came up behind him.
‘It’s all wrong,’ Michael said. ‘It doesn’t make any sense.’
‘That’s the sign over the gate of your acceptance,’ Biri told him. ‘For a Sidhe, being alone is exaltation, being alone is ridiculous. You must never trust us…or our philosophies.’
‘Then I shouldn’t trust you at all?’
‘Never trust a teacher.’ ”
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… And there’s the point: To walk alone is not the refusal to interact caringly with others – certainly the Teachers interacted with me most solicitously – it is to use a tool to get to a very specific, very particular place, a place that can be reached only if one walks in a complete state of detachment, the place of self-empowerment. “Never trust a teacher.” That is so true . But it goes beyond that: never trust anyone, not even a lover. It was one of the most difficult and confusing aspects of submitting to the Teachers those many years ago, yet the fact that I could not trust them made their teaching that much more effective and powerful because before I could accept it, I had to test it, make it my own. Once I owned it, then I could trust it.
We of earth are taught by our controlling institutions and masters, and particularly by our gods, to trust others rather than ourselves. The aim is obvious, yet remains unseen by Earthians: to prevent people from gaining independence from the Matrix and to come to some reasonable understanding of what one “passage” or one physical life really is all about.
Of course we could make the effort to reason what our trust in our masters has gotten us. We could look at the planet and see the obvious results of our obedience to Religion, the State and Money. One word comes to mind: absolute horror. But to see this horror, one has to have travelled around, seen other places, other worlds, where the state of earth can be offered for comparison. Without this ability to compare, it is impossible to really know what goes on right here. It is impossible to feel the horror this pseudo-life imposes on everyone, rich or poor, young or old, healthy or sick. It’s not only the physical discomfort, the pain from so much distorted faith, hope and love, but a spirit/mind emptiness, as if our life was ever being sucked out of us. That it is. Every effort, every move by the Matrix and its agents is to suck our life-force and invent new and more efficient ways to do so and every effort we expend within the agencies of the Matrix to better our own lives only creates more dependence, confusion, hopelessness.
Life within the Matrix begins and ends in two standard traps: one for birth and one for death. At birth, you slip into a ready-made world of absolute control and as an infant you learn to accept that you are helpless, completely needy, relying for everything on your mother, your parents, family support and so forth, in order to survive and eventually peck out a sort of life-space for yourself among the other turkeys all intent on keeping the scattered grains in the coop for themselves or for their group.
Your whole life is designed for you to fit in, with its confusing little designer dramas, the good, the bad and the indifferent. At death, whenever that comes, having been brainwashed to believe in only three terminal possibilities: annihilation, heaven or hell, you are taken back into the spirit trap and without hardly a struggle, separated from your memories and recycled, sent back for another round, as helpless and confused as the very first time. But who can see this? Is it any wonder “past lives” memories are so carefully expunged from the average minds, belittled, turned into fantasy drama, categorically denied by rank and file beliefs?
For those intent on breaking out of the Matrix “eternal” chains, life becomes an all-or-nothing quest. There is never a moment of inattention, of uncaring insouciance. Life becomes a battle of wits with something within, but not of, oneself. The self-enemy, the most dangerous enemy of all; the one who always portrays itself as the ultimate friend.
To what end, this battle? To develop the ability to pass through from this physical life to the spirit realm without losing one’s mind in the process. Without falling into the “trinitarian” Matrix death trap. As obvious as it is difficult. Life becomes a training to make one’s self into a shadow, to become invisible to the Matrix even while operating in full view of the System, while opposing that very System with one’s every thought.
Of course, that brings up the matter of one’s own thoughts. Most of the thoughts expressed on this world are endlessly recycled ideas, promptings, imaginings, concepts, brainwashings—creations of Matrix propaganda machinery. People do not think their own thoughts, they regurgitate the thoughts fed to them by the System, through whatever media they happen to suck off of. The Matrix doesn’t care what you believe as long as what you believe was invented by the Matrix and is being preached and spread by its agents by all possible means.
Bringing up the aspect of self-empowerment. Without original thought, thought that is truly one’s own, self-empowerment is impossible. Without the power to live in mind-aloneness; the magical power to block Matrix thinking and to fill that space with one’s own original thinking, real personal power is impossible. Those who live within a realm of co-dependency, no matter what or who it is they depend on, can never understand self-empowerment nor the need to develop this pure personal power. The self-empowered know how to live in a state of mind that says without equivocation: you are alone. That’s the choice: co-dependent relationships and eternal mind slavery to the System or to be alone in mind; choosing to create one’s own reality and to live that reality, allowing it to flow through the cracks within the Matrix, like the proverbial Serpent whom the Matrix gods taught man to fear and revile. That serpentine power, that self-empowerment flowing through the cracks is like water that seeps in and when the self-empowered learns the magic of expansion, it does the same as ice does in the mountains: when it expands, however minute the movement, huge pieces of rocks come apart and crumble down the mountainsides, sometimes causing avalanches. Intent crushes the Matrix, not numbers, not size, not physical strength.
“Never underestimate the power of the Force, young Jedi.” (Star Wars)
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May the Force be with you!
Peace, abundant love and bountiful blessings,
John Michael Domino
I was a loner even then, refusing in high school to belong to any of the cliques that were everywhere. Enjoying fellowship with people from all kinds of backgrounds and standing up for those that were bullied or didn't, “fit in”, to one part of the matrix or another.
I always said that I learn from teachers––good and bad. I always challenged my teachers, and for the most part, they welcomed it. When I became a teacher, I realized that I could learn far more without a teacher than with one.
I married only once, a brief three years. The rest of that time I spent alone and mostly thought about things that most people didn't. I have been quite happy and content alone, and even though my paralysis is challenging me more each year, I remain happy and buoyant about life and how free I am from all of the controls people are tied up in.
Thanks for writing about me. I love it.
Ron
My Best, neerja
Love ya!
Jane